American culture has been fixated from the start on two principles inherited from the 17th century English society that established the colonies: the mandate to cure physical, social, and moral ills, and the primacy of ownership.

Amid the wide global turmoil stirred by America’s current flexing of authoritarian nationalism, a deeper spiritual turmoil has been brought to light by the current administration’s use of the apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

Sallie B. King, Professor of Philosophy and Religion at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, is the author of many books and articles on Buddhism, Quakerism, interfaith dialogue, and the cross-cultural philosophy of religion.…

Many of us are chronically distressed by the suffering we see around us. It confronts us in the 24/7 news cycle, in social media, in what we pass on the street every day. We live with a longing to be rid of the pain and guilt that we experience in witnessing all of this…

I think we tend to miss the point of the teaching story misnamed “The Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37).

Almost always our focus is on the people who passed by the “man who fell among thieves” and the one who stopped, instead of on the framing questions by which Jesus signaled the living spirit of the story.

A lawyer asks Jesus how to attain eternal life. When Jesus challenges him to find…